re: Joel Klatt: The NCAA basketball tournament is the "dumbest tournament in all of sports"

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Because there isn't one. Ever.

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That's not true. English soccer is about as objective as it can be: every team plays every other team once at home and once away. And they are awarded points based on outcome, so it doesn't matter when in the season it happens.

Only thing you really can't control for is weather and injuries.

If you can’t even win your conference tournament why should you compete in the actual tournament?

Just as a sports fan, there’s probably been more memorable moments I can think of from March Madness over the years than there has from college football championships In whatever form (bowl games era , BCS era, current playoff era).

And I say that as one who generally considers football my favorite sport to watch.

Right. Let's be like the NBA. Play interminable best of seven series' and finish in June just like they do

Klatt is widely known as a legitimately mentally disabled person

The problem with sports media personalities is that they have no concern for the game(s) itself. The NCAA basketball tournament is good for the game in general - there plenty of competitive programs that cycle over the years which gives more opportunities to players and more exposure to younger players. That trickles down to the youngest levels of the sport(s).

This smug attitude of “nobody wants to see James Madison…” is incredibly short sighted as it argues for a concentration of resources among the programs that already have the most. It aims to eliminate competition.

He even said something at the end like “if Tulane doesn’t get in, they sue for antitrust, then they will be back in”

You know what I don’t want to see? Giving the best teams the most chances so that they are the only ones that advance in to tournament play. Because the eliminates the very essence of a sports competition that is confined to a single game. These clowns think they are smarter than the casual viewer, but fail to realize they are arguing for a more boring and predictable product, which did not reach its popularity using that formula. That is, the casual viewer is and always will be the driver of high level competitive sports, and these talking heads are merely a parasite of that enthusiasm between competitions. They fool themselves into thinking the engagement they get, a byproduct of the sport’s popularity, translates to their perceived prerogative to drive policy

possibly the most interesting thing about the ncaa tournament in today's world is that one of the very few (3-4) most deserving teams wins it every year anyway.

so it combines really fun cinderellas with the best teams winning. it's the best event in sports